


The Width of a Line

by StormyDaze



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Background Daisy Tonner/Basira Hussain, Canon-Typical Violence, Do Not Archive, Fluff, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, no betas we die like men, not canon compliant with anything past MAG 119 except possibly by accident, slight MAG 119 spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 06:10:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16034597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormyDaze/pseuds/StormyDaze
Summary: After stopping the Unknowing, Jon is losing his humanity more than ever. Martin helps him find it again.





	The Width of a Line

**Author's Note:**

> I need to put this up before I lose my mind, so. Unbeta'd and un-Brit-picked. Not canon-compliant for anything past MAG 119, and possibly for several things before that because my memory is shit this late at night.

Jon’s been called oblivious before, but at least he’s not so oblivious that he doesn’t know he’s oblivious. Er. The point is that he’s aware of his massive blind spots, especially when it comes to... interpersonal relationships. Still, when he limps through the door of the hospital, half carrying Tim, the both of them splattered with blood and melted wax and other substances Jon doesn’t even want to think about, and Martin sprints over to him, throws his arms around him, and plants a kiss on his lips, Jon’s brain turns to static.

A lot of puzzle pieces fall very rapidly into place. Oh. OH.

Shit.

By the time Jon’s mind has caught up with what’s happening, Martin has released him, an expression of horror dawning on his face. Jon looks everywhere except at him. He glances at Tim, expecting a sarcastic comment, but he doesn’t get one. It turns out this is because Tim is unconscious, which provides a nice distraction. Nurses swarm around them, lifting Tim onto a gurney and bustling him off to be taken care of.

A tiny nurse of Indian descent, five feet tall and a hundred pounds soaking wet, wants to check Jon over as well.

“I’m fine,” he says.

“People who are fine have all their blood inside their body,” the nurse says. Her name tag says her name is Rita. She points to an exam room. “Go. Now.” Jon goes.

Rita puts five stitches in the gash in his head, clicking her tongue when he hisses through his teeth. She also tells him that his nose is broken, and he probably has a couple of broken ribs. They can do an x-ray to confirm, but the only treatment is ice and rest either way, so Jon declines. Rita swabs the rest of his cuts with disinfectant and gives him some painkillers he knows he won’t take, and then sends him back to the waiting room.

Daisy is there, arguing loudly with another nurse who wants to examine her. She’s cradling her arm awkwardly and there’s a considerable amount of blood pouring out of multiple places on her face.

She breaks off when she sees Jon. “Basira’s in surgery,“ she says shortly. “She’s probably going to lose the leg.”

“You bleeding all over the floor isn’t going to help her,” Jon says. “Let them stitch you up.”

Daisy sighs, and all the fight goes out of her. “Fine.” The nurse steers her away. Jon spots Rita, who has witnessed the conversation as she exits the exam room. She puts her face in her hands.

Martin is sitting in a chair nearby, tapping his foot anxiously. “Are you hurt, Martin?” Jon asks.

“Fine,” Martin says, “I mean, not fine, obviously, but it’s just some small scratches and stuff. Mostly papercuts, there was a lot of paper flying around.”

There’s someone missing. “Where’s Melanie?”

Martin hesitates. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, _you don’t know?!_ ”

“She was fighting with Elias and the lights were flashing and there were books and papers flying everywhere and one came right at my head so I ducked and when I looked up they were both gone,” Martin says in a rush. He gives Jon a reproachful look. “You didn’t have to do that. I was going to tell you.”

“Sorry,” Jon says. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean to do that.”

“It’s all right,” Martin says. It’s not, but it’s nice that he believes it.

Silence stretches out between them. “Er, about earlier... “ Martin starts.

A nurse interrupts them to tell them they can see Tim now, and the impending awkward conversation is forgotten.

Tim is still unconscious. They’ve cleaned and bandaged his burns, but they can’t know if he has head trauma until he wakes up. Jon knows there might be other damage as well, damage the doctors aren’t equipped to diagnose, but there’s nothing he can do about that right now.

Martin disappears for a while and comes back with two paper cups of tea, but Jon’s hands are shaking too badly to drink it. He just stares at Tim, letting the background noises of the hospital fade into white noise.

_Daisy, surrounded by the skinned bodies of the anglerfish’s victims, tearing at them with her fingernails as they swarm her. Tim, still stabbing the thing wearing his brother’s skin, sobbing. The explosion in slow motion, flames rolling across the room, tossing Basira into the wall, nothing but bloody shreds where her leg should be. And Jon, frozen in place, unable to move, unable to help, unable to do anything but Watch..._

Jon wrenches himself awake with a start. The hospital room is dark except for the blinking lights on the machines and a bright sliver coming in through the small window in the door. Tim hasn’t woken. Martin is scrunched uncomfortably in another chair, sound asleep. Jon takes a few deep breaths, reassuring himself that they’re alive, at least. Then he gets up and goes off in search of Daisy and Basira.

He manages to... _convince_ Rita to tell him what room Basira is in, although she protests that she’s not supposed to give that information out to anyone except family members. “I won’t tell,” Jon promises, and goes looking for the room.

Basira, like Tim, is asleep on a bed, hooked up to a variety of softly glowing machines. Through the thin blanket, Jon can see the empty space where her left leg should be. Daisy, cleaned up and with her arm in a cast, sits in a chair with her head resting on the bed, also asleep. She’s holding Basira’s hand.

Huh. Jon’s seeing all sorts of things more clearly now. He watches the steady rise and fall of their chests for a moment before leaving them to their sleep.

He doesn’t want to go back to sleep, so he roams the hallways, peering in each room to look at the patients sleeping in their beds. He tells himself he’s just being cautious, making sure nothing is lurking, ready to ambush them. After the third time a nurse pointedly asks if she can help him find something, he wanders back to the waiting room and begins working his way through the magazines there. It doesn’t completely distract him, but it helps.

Around dawn, he notices a commotion going on in Tim’s room and races over, his heart in his throat. Tim is awake, coughing and gasping and choking, the machines around him flashing and beeping. Martin stands in the corner, wringing his hands as the nurses try to help. Tim makes an awful retching noise, and someone shoves a basin under his chin just as he vomits up a mess that looks like sawdust streaked with blood and some kind of oily black substance. He slumps back against the bed, still gasping.

There’s a lot of discussion about medication and intubation, but in the end Tim regains his breath on his own, and they just give him some extra oxygen. Jon is a little concerned about what the nurses might think of Tim’s condition, but he really doesn’t have the energy to worry about it. If they notice something odd, they can come to the Institute and make a statement. Covering things up is not in Jon’s job description.

When he and Tim and Martin have the room to themselves again, he fills Tim in on Daisy and Basira’s conditions. “We did it,” he says, managing a smile. “We stopped it.”

“Well, that’s something,” Tim rasps out.

Jon doesn’t know how to tell him about what happened with the Beholding. He decides it can wait.

Tim insists that Jon and Martin go home. They’re still wearing their filthy clothes, and honestly Jon wants nothing more than a hot shower and about eighteen hours of dreamless sleep. He has a cab drop him off at Georgie’s, tipping everything in his wallet to make up for the smell of blood.

Georgie throws her arms around him when she answers the door, and then just as quickly leaps back. “What is all that?” she asks.

“You don’t want to know,” Jon tells her.

“Did you stop it? Are you hurt? Is everyone else okay? Did—”

“I’m fine,” Jon says. “They’re fine. We stopped it. Please, Georgie, I’m exhausted.”

“Of course,” Georgie says. “Sorry.” Still, she leans in and gives him a peck on the cheek before he leaves.

Jon stands in the shower until the water runs cold, scrubbing and scrubbing at his skin until he’s rubbed it raw and red. He grabs the first clothes he can find, a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt, and collapses on the air mattress he uses for a bed.

_The darkness, the forgetting. He doesn’t know who he is. He doesn’t know what anything is. He’s lost something, he knows that, but he doesn’t know what it is or how to find it. Things, lurking in the shadows, things that don’t move the way they should, coming closer and closer…_

This time, he actually wakes up screaming. Georgie dashes in to check on him, but Jon is already pulling himself together, taking deep breaths. Just dreams.

He can feel a tug deep in his chest, pulling him back to the Institute. So much sooner than last time he left it, but. Well. That’s to be expected, isn’t it? He changes into appropriate work attire over Georgie’s protests.

“I need to go back,” is all he says. He hopes she understands what he means. She lets him go, anyway.

The Archives look like a hurricane has ripped through them. Books thrown about, filing cabinets torn open, reams upon reams of paper littering every surface. A lot of it is wet, as if the fire sprinklers have gone off. Jon sighs and begins to clean up.

Jon isn’t expecting anyone else to come in to the Institute today, but he hasn’t counted on Martin. He’s sitting at his desk, sorting through a mountain of statements, when Martin shows up at his office door. He has his hands shoved in his pockets and his shoulders hunched in that way he does when he’s trying to make himself look smaller. To take up less space.

Jon never noticed that about Martin before. He doesn’t want to think about what it means that he’s noticing it now.

He’d managed to forget about that kiss, and hoped Martin had as well. Heat of the moment, emotions running high and all that. One look at Martin’s expression brings it all back. A cold sliver of dread spears his stomach. He tells himself he’s being irrational. This isn’t like... this is different. This is _Martin_.

He raises an eyebrow, but Martin’s gaze is fixed on the corner of Jon’s desk. His words tumble out in a barely intelligible rush. “Doyouwanttohavecoffeewithmesometime?”

Contrary to popular belief, Jon doesn’t want to hurt Martin. He tells himself that it’s Martin’s damn fault for putting him in this situation. Why can’t he just let these things lie?

“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Martin,” he says stiffly.

“Right,“ Martin says. “Sorry. I just thought, you know, end of the world and all, really glad we didn’t die,“ he gives a weak chuckle, “and, well, anyway, l’m just going to... go. Now.” His voice breaks and Jon stares down at his desk so he doesn’t have to see tears welling up in Martin’s eyes. He wants to hate Martin for being weak, for having feelings, for being human.

He doesn’t, though. Hate Martin, that is. At least that’s something.

Jon goes outside and smokes a cigarette until his heart stops racing, although the sick feeling in his stomach doesn’t quite go away.

Martin avoids him like the plague after that, although he still comes in to the Institute every day. The only evidence of him that Jon sees is the rightened furniture and reshelved books that Jon knows he didn’t do himself. Jon busies himself painstakingly copying the damaged statements as best he can, sorting through the stacks of pages that have been scattered everywhere. He takes this opportunity to overhaul Gertrude’s ridiculous statement numbering system. If he is anything, he is the Archivist, and an Archivist without an Archive is. Well.

Just a monster.

Tim is released from hospital after two days. Jon takes him home and putters around the flat, making sure that Tim has plenty of pillows and food for when he’s ready to eat and whatever he needs to be comfortable. Tim, for his part, can’t stand up for more than a minute, and his bandages need to be replaced frequently, and he’s likely to start hacking up sawdust at any moment.

“How long do I have before the Institute drags me back there?” he asks, his third day home.

“You don’t have to go back,” Jon tells him. This, at least, is something he can do for Tim.

Tim snorts, which sets off another coughing fit, spraying sawdust all over the blanket he’s sitting under. “I tried that, remember? It didn’t exactly work out well.”

“I told the Beholding to let you go.”

Tim stares. “What?”

“I told the Beholding to let you and Martin and Daisy and Basira and Melanie go. Although no one knows where Melanie is, so I have no idea if it held up its end of the bargain there.”

“And it just agreed?” Tim’s eyes narrow. “What did you promise it?”

Jon sighs. “I told it I would stop fighting it. I’ll be its Archivist, willingly, if it would let you all go.”

Tim’s eyes widen. “You can’t do that!”

“I’ll think you find that I can,” Jon says, and it comes out harsher than he meant. “You’re free,” he says, his voice softer. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Jon looks away so he doesn’t see Tim’s eyes well with tears.

So Jon spends his days cleaning up the Archives, and stops by to check on Tim in the evenings. The news that he’s finally free of the Institute seems to greatly improve Tim’s spirits, and he heals slowly but steadily. He’s a nightmare of a patient, wanting to push himself too far too fast, but the promise of a life free from the Eye keeps him picking himself back up again. In the meantime, almost getting killed hasn’t made him any less of an arse.

“You look like shit,” Tim tells him when he stops by, about two weeks after his... conversation with Martin. “Are you still sleeping at the Archives?”

“No.” It’s barely a lie; he hasn’t been sleeping much at all. He doesn’t seem to need it as much, especially when he’s in the Archives, and when he does sleep, the nightmares wake him up. As much as he’d like to blame them on the Stranger, in truth they’re probably just a product of his own brain. Trauma does that, he’s heard.

Tim’s retort is cut off by a coughing fit, and Jon hands him a clean towel. There seems to be less sawdust than usual. Surely that’s a good sign.

“If this is about Martin,” Tim says, once he’s able to breathe again, “just talk to him. Between him moping on my couch all morning and you being... you all evening, I’m about ready to slit my wrists.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jon says.

Tim just sighs and puts on Netflix. He’s been very much enjoying a makeover show called _Queer Eye for the Straight Guy._ He’s taken to making pointed comments about Jon’s wardrobe, which Jon ignores with something approaching grace.

Jon can’t shake the feeling that he owes Martin an explanation. The unease gnaws at him. He’s not sure if he wants to make Martin feel better or just assuage his own guilt. He doesn’t allow himself dwell on the idea that maybe he actually misses Martin’s cheerful chatter and endless cups of tea.

He does, though. So one day at the Institute, he goes to track Martin down. Best to just get it over with and clear the air now; he’s never been one for beating around the bush. Besides, the stress of having the issue hanging over his head is hell for his smoking habit.

He finds Martin seated on the floor in the back of the stacks, piles of books strewn around him, pages marked with scraps of paper. Martin is engrossed in a massive book bound in green leather.

“You know, we do have desks here,” Jon says.

Martin jumps, knocking over a pile of books in the process. He blushes. ”Got a bit caught up, I guess,” he says. “Did you—er, did you need something?”

Jon sits down on the floor, resting his back against one of the shelves. Martin stares at the unprecedented sight, but Jon finds he doesn’t want to meet Martin’s eyes. He takes off his glasses and sighs as the world goes soft and fuzzy around him, Martin’s face becoming nothing more than a pink blur. He rubs his eyes tiredly.

“It’s not personal,” he says.

“I’m—I’m sorry?” the Martin-blur says.

“I, well, it’s not that I don’t like you, Martin,” Jon says. “I’ve found I rather, well, enjoy your company, lately. Especially after. You know.” He shrugs, the gesture encompassing the entirety of the Unknowing and everything leading up to it.

“It’s all right, Jon,” Martin says. He sounds tired and sad and maybe just a little bitter. Jon doesn’t blame him. “You don’t have to make excuses.”

“I’m not!” Jon scrubs his hand over his eyes again. “It’s really, really not you. I just... don’t do that.”

“Drink coffee?” Martin asks, and a hysterical laugh bubbles up in Jon’s throat.

“You know. Date,” he says.

There’s a silence in which Jon can almost hear Martin trying not to ask whatever he wants to ask. Jon waves a hand in his direction to tell him to get on with it. “I don’t want to pry,” Martin says carefully, “but you dated Georgie, right? If you’re straight and you just didn’t want to say anything—“

“I’m not straight,” Jon says. As much as it’s such an obvious fact about himself, like that he has brown hair or he wears glasses, he’s not sure that he’s ever said it out loud before. He usually doesn’t bother correcting people. He doesn’t care if they assume whatever it is they want to assume. ”I’m... it’s complicated.”

More silence, but it’s not oppressive. Jon gets the impression that Martin is just letting him take his time. Which is just as well, because Jon would rather let Nikola have another go at his skin than have to explain... feelings.

It would be easier if he could compel it out of himself, the way he can get people to give statements, rather than having to pick and choose the right words. But his power doesn’t work that way.

“I have dated people,” he says finally. “Georgie. And—at uni, there was someone, a man. But both of those relationships ended because they wanted things I wasn’t comfortable giving.”

“I’m not sure I understand,“ Martin says.

“Sex,” Jon says, his face burning now. He wrinkles his nose. “I don’t... enjoy it much. And as I’ve come to understand it, most people consider it a rather vital part of a relationship.”

“You’re asexual,” Martin says.

“Yes.” Jon feels a little something in his stomach unclench. “I’m asexual. I wasn’t sure you knew the term.”

There’s silence. Jon lets Martin digest this information. Then Martin says, “Is that the only reason?”

“I—what?”

“If sex were off the table, would you want to have coffee with me?“ Martin asks. “It’s fine if the answer’s no, I mean, I get it. But. If you knew I would never ask you for that, would you—would that change anything?”

Jon puts his glasses back on so that he can get good look at Martin’s face. Earnestness shines through beneath every freckle. “You can’t mean that.”

“Why not?”

“It wouldn’t be fair to you,” Jon says. “I’m sure you have... needs, it’s normal... “

“I can take care of myself,” Martin says, blushing so hard that Jon is almost concerned for his health. “I mean, it’s not like I’ve had much going on in that area lately anyway.”

This is a terrible idea. It can only end badly.

Jon sighs. “All right,” he says. “Let’s get coffee.”

**Author's Note:**

> I definitely want to write more of this, but with other commitments, it might be a few weeks.
> 
> If you're going to comment about how I have portrayed Jon's asexuality, please know that I am asexual myself and keep that in mind. Thanks!


End file.
